


Lost in the Fog

by Innwich



Category: Silent Hill, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Fog, Happy halloween, Horror, M/M, Message, Mystery, Polaroid Picture, Small Towns, Song Lyrics, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2552279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Dean received a letter from Cas asking for help, he set off to look for the angel in a foggy resort town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in season 9. The streets and buildings are borrowed from _Silent Hill_. If you are interested, you can find the detailed maps [here](http://www.silenthillmemories.net/sh2/maps_en.htm).

A thick fog hung over the whole town.

It was early in the morning, but Dean could just make out the faint light from the cloudy sky through the fog. If he looked back now, he wouldn’t be able to see the tree stump he’d passed a few seconds ago. He hadn’t been able to see more than five feet ahead of him ever since he started walking on this road.

A large sign looming out of the fog bore the words:

_Welcome to Silent Hill_

Dean double-checked the letter in his hand. It was handwritten in blocky letters that looked like they could be printed by a typewriter.

The message itself was simple:

_Come to Silent Hill at once, Dean. I need your help. I am in South Vale._   
_Castiel._

“This is the place,” Dean said. He pulled out his phone. No signal bars. At least it explained why Cas wrote him a letter instead of sending a text or calling him on the phone like normal people did.

“Friggin’ angels.”

The whole thing was fishy as hell.

It stunk of a set-up. The problem was Dean didn’t know if the trap was meant for him, or for Cas. After his recent clashes with groups of angry douchey angels, Dean wouldn’t be surprised if the trap was meant for them both.

Cas might have gotten his angel mojo back, but he was still the ex-human that got killed by a reaper and had an entire horde of angels hounding his ass. He was still Dean’s friend. Dean wasn’t gonna hang him out to dry.

Dean pulled out a map from his pocket, just to make sure he was heading in the right direction. A blurb on the front of the map claimed Silent Hill to be a lakeside resort town. South Vale was a mostly residential area in the south side of Silent Hill.

The sounds of waves could be heard from his right, somewhere beyond the tall large trees that flanked the road he was on. The town was built on the shores of a lake. Dean couldn’t see it, but it must be where this mist was coming from.

“I’m coming for you, buddy.”


	2. Alone

** Streets **

A faded sign on a street corner read, _Nathan Avenue_.

After a walk that seemed to last forever in the mist, Dean had finally reached streets and buildings. The town was quiet. Cars were parked on both sides of the roads, but there was no one in sight. The only things that changed were the traffic lights, blinking red and amber and green hazily through the fog.

The fog was so thick that Dean could barely make out the shops that lined the streets.

He checked his map.

The white building next to him was a Ridgeview Medical Clinic. The white paint on the clinic walls had turned a light shade of yellow from dirt and rain.

In all the times Dean tracked down Dad or Sam, he had picked up a routine. The first thing he always did was to look for a hospital or a clinic. A lot of the time that was where they ended up. His cell was not working, and it was hard enough to find a pay phone without this fog. He either had to borrow a phone, or check the hospitals himself.

Good. Hospitals and clinics were always the first places Dean checked whenever he needed to look for Dad or Sam.

The curtains on the windows of the clinic were drawn. Dean tried the door. It was locked. A ‘closed’ sign was hung behind the glass.

Dean knocked on the door. It sounded oddly loud in the empty streets. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

Dean pressed an ear to the door, but he couldn’t hear anything from inside the clinic. After a few more minutes, he picked the lock, keeping an eye behind him, just in case someone passed by and caught him. He would have waited till night, but he didn’t think Cas could wait.

The door opened with a noisy creak; its hinges were rusted.

A reception desk sat right across from the door. Along the walls of the waiting room were couches. They were colored a hideous dirty green that reminded Dean of too many motel room carpets.

Dean tried the computer behind the reception counter. He couldn’t switch it on; the power was cut off.

He tried the register placed next to the computer. The book was covered in dust. The corners of the pages had gone yellowish with age. Dean opened the register to the last written page, and frowned.

The last entry was made by someone called Harvey Baker. It was dated back to the year 1976.

“How is this place not closed down yet?” Dean said.

Dean left the clinic, and kept walking down the street. He had a bad feeling about this. The streets were too quiet, now that he was thinking about it. It couldn’t just be because everyone was staying indoors because of the fog.

Dean skidded to a stop.

“Son of a bitch.”

There was a huge gap in the road, cutting it off completely. The edge of the gap was jagged and littered with pieces of concrete.

The hole was so wide that Dean could barely see the other side; he wasn’t sure there was an other side. He couldn’t see the bottom of the gap past the fog. Standing here, it felt like he was tittering at the edge of existence, with nowhere to go but back.

Dean kicked a piece of rock down the hole. It fell with thuds that continued until it fell too far for Dean to hear.

Dean paced around the edge, before giving it up as a loss cause.

A small piece of lined paper was left lying near the edge of the chasm. It looked like a page torn from a pocket notebook. A message was written in the same blocky handwriting in Cas’s letter:

_Many of the roads are gone. It is disturbing. I must find another way. I miss flying._

“You really are here,” Dean said, looking at the piece of paper like it would give him an answer. “But where are you, man?”

\- - -

** St. Stella’s Church **

Dean walked away from the gap in the road.

He followed the only other route that he could use. He walked past the clinic, and then past a fire station, before stopping in front of a church.

A message was scrawled in red paint on the wall on the wall next to the entrance:

_Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?_

“Right,” Dean said.

A church with a strong stance on faith. It seemed like the kind of place that Cas would visit. Although Dean really wasn’t one to speak, especially after he went to a chapel hoping for a miracle, and got a bunch of asshole angels descending on him all at once at the hospital.

Dean walked inside the church.

There were rows of pews facing the altar, behind which a huge cross was hung on the wall. Dean slid a hand through a book left on a pew. It was covered in dust. No one had been in this church for a while.

Then Dean heard it: Something growling behind him.

Dean turned around, and his stomach dropped.

It looked like a dog, but it couldn’t be a dog.

It was huge, standing at half the height of a horse. It was black and red-eyed. Its large fangs extended well beyond its jaw. It didn’t have fur. Its pink wrinkled skin was dotted with brown spots. Its skin was stretched thinly over its bones, and the ends of its ribs were sticking out of its flesh, but somehow it was alive and breathing, the air escaping its lungs with each raspy breath it took.

It looked like a hybrid between a hellhound and a black dog and a Rottweiler.

“You’re one ugly bitch.”

The thing charged. It didn’t bark or growl. It went straight for Dean’s throat.

Dean pulled out the knife from his boot and slashed its neck. He got it in the neck with one stab.

The monster crashed into the floor with a nasty snarl.

Dean pulled out his knife and plunged it a few more times in the head, just to be sure he got it. The monster dog whimpered one last time, before Dean pulled out his knife and stomped its cracked skull, leaving brains and blood on the floor.

Dean didn’t have any delusions that a church was untouchable by demons or monsters.

Dean blinked as he looked up at the large cross mounted on the wall behind the altar. Something was stuck on the cross. Dean dragged out a chair from behind the altar, and stepped on it so he could reach the cross.

A Polaroid photo was nailed to the cross with a rusty nail.

Dean pulled out the nail, and the picture dropped into Dean’s hand.

“What the hell?” Dean said.

It was a Polaroid picture of Sam when he was younger, when he’d gotten out of Stanford and hadn’t ditched his bangs. In the blank space below the picture, the numbers ‘1/7’ was written in black ink.

Dean was sure Sam had never taken this picture. They didn’t even own a Polaroid camera.

“Cas?” Dean called out.

He didn’t know why Cas would have a picture of Sam, but he didn’t see why else a picture of Sam would be here.

Dean looked around the church, and found another one of Cas’s note on the altar. Cas must be leaving messages everywhere. This note read:

_It’s not at the church._

Another line was squeezed at the bottom of the paper, like it was added as an afterthought:

_There is something following me._

“That doesn’t sound good,” Dean said with a heavy heart, but the note didn’t give him any more clues as to what happened to Cas. Dean pocketed the note and Sam’s picture, and left the church.

Dean didn’t see anyone on the streets. It was like a ghost town. He was starting to think no one lived here. The fog was making everything seemed that much more eerie. A paranoid voice in Dean’s head reminded him how anyone could be standing right next to him, and he would be none the wiser because of this friggin’ creepy fog.

Dean kept a hand on the hilt of his knife.

“Dean. Dean. Dean.”

Dean spun around. He couldn’t see anything other than the blurred buildings around him. “Cas?”

No one answered.

But Dean’s gaze was caught by a steady glow in the fog. It was coming from a nearby building.


	3. Jimmy

** Happy Burger **

Dean jogged up to the one-story building.

A sign with the name, _Happy Burger_ , was mounted on the roof. It sat next to the road and had a parking lot behind it, like most diners did. Its roof was covered with shingles that were colored in rusty red.

A warm yellow light was shining through the windows.

Dean recalled that time Cas, under the influence of Famine, scarfed down burgers like a starved man. He should have known Cas would be here.

Dean pushed open the door, and the bell above the door let out a cheerful jingle.

A man was sitting at one of the tables by the windows. He had his back to Dean.

“Cas?” Dean said.

“I’m not Castiel,” the man said. His voice was pitched higher than Cas’s. Dean knew that voice.

“Jimmy?” Dean said carefully. He’d thought the guy was a goner, if he’d ever thought about it.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “You look familiar, uh...”

“Dean. Cas’s friend? Sam and Dean? You knew me,” Dean said. “I bought you burgers.”

“Dean. Yeah,” Jimmy said, nodding. He kept looking out the window. There was nothing much to see, except for the foggy parking lot. “I remember you.”

“Where’s Cas?”

“I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “He’s your friend, not mine.”

“No need to get snippy at me,” Dean said.

“I’m not exactly happy to find myself here, Dean,” Jimmy said. “It didn’t go so well for me the last time Cas left.”

“Okay, alright, calm down,” Dean said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Bleeding out of my stomach before Cas possessed me again. Next thing I knew I was waking up in the middle of a road in this fog,” Jimmy grumbled. “He could have left me on a bed somewhere.”

“None of this makes sense,” Dean said.

“You’re telling me,” Jimmy said. “Where are we anyway?”

“We’re in a town in Maine,” Dean said.

“Oh good,” Jimmy said, sagging in his seat. “I thought I might be in a post-apocalyptical world.”

“We had a few close calls,” Dean muttered.

“It can’t have been more than a few years, right?” Jimmy said. “Guessing from the lines on your face.”

Dean stared unbelievingly at him. “Did you just say I look old?”

“You look older,” Jimmy corrected. “Do you know how disorientating it is to wake up in another place entirely with no concept of how much time has passed? This could be a thousand years into the future, for all I know.”

“Well, it’s not,” Dean said. “But the place is a ghost town. A ghost town with monster dogs in it.”

“Monster dogs?”

“Yeah. It’s nothing I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen a lot of monsters.”

“So what was Castiel doing here?” Jimmy said.

“Hell if I know. I got this letter,” Dean said, holding out the letter. Jimmy read it, frowning. Dean said, “Did you write it?”

“No. It’s not my handwriting.” Jimmy handed the letter back to Dean. “But I think I’ve seen a note with that handwriting on it.”

“Where is it?” Dean said.

“It’s next to one of the cash registers.” Jimmy added, “I was looking for burgers earlier.”

“You couldn’t have said something earlier?” Dean said.

“I didn’t know it was from Cas,” Jimmy said defensively. “The message didn’t make any sense.”

Dean went to the counter. It was easy to find the message; it was written in the same kind of notepaper as he previous ones. 

The note was simple:

_Samandriel?_

Dean remembered the angel. The guy had died after they’d gotten him out of Crowley’s torture dungeon, and Cas had acted fishy as hell before taking the body back to Heaven.

“I’m guessing it means something to you?” Jimmy said.

It’s an angel’s name,” Dean said.

“That’s a weird name,” Jimmy said.

“Look,” Dean said. “We need to find Cas. We need to find out what happened to him.”

“How are you gonna do that?”

Dean held up the _Samandriel_ note. “If these notes were left by Cas before he left you, then we’ve got to follow them to find out how to get Cas back.”

“I’ve tried calling him down. It didn’t work,” Jimmy said.

“That’s why you’re coming with me.”

“What?” Jimmy said. “Didn’t you say there are monsters?”

“You wanna sit here and wait for a miracle to happen?” Dean said. “‘Cause I’m telling you, it’s not gonna happen.”

Jimmy eyed Dean glumly. “Are you going to kidnap me again?”

“You can’t go back to your family, man. I’m sorry,” Dean said. “I don’t know where they are, and neither do you. They’ve probably moved.”

“I know,” Jimmy said quietly. His brooding act was cracking.

“Come on, help me out here,” Dean said. “Please.”

After a long beat, Jimmy finally sighed. “Only because you ask so nicely.”

\- - -

** Neely’s Bar **

Neely’s Bar smelled like mold and dried puke, and it was as deserted as the streets.

The whole place was falling apart. The ceiling was broken, leaving gaping cracks in the plaster. The wiring for the lights dangled down from the ceiling in dark curves, like vines from tree branches. The wooden floor was discolored with large water stains, and it creaked under Dean’s every step.

The place was small, with barely enough space for a bar, two stools, and an old-school jukebox sitting in the corner. Strangely, a pool table was placed in the middle of the floor. There was hardly room to walk around the pool table, let alone play a decent game on it.

Dean drew a finger across the bar counter, leaving a track through a thick layer of dust.

The few windows in the bar were covered with yellowing newspapers. Faint light from outside the windows came through the gaps between the pieces of newspapers. Jimmy wondered to the covered windows.

“Don’t go too far,” Dean said. “One of the monsters may come through the windows.”

Jimmy waved Dean off. “I can take care of myself.”

It didn’t take for Dean to find another one of Cas’s note. It was placed neatly on the bar. The note read:

_I found a book that belonged to a resident of Wood Side Apartments. It mentioned an object called the Seal of Metatron. Am I on the right track?_

“Metatron?” Dean frowned. He checked the back of the piece of paper, but it was blank.

Dean looked behind the counter, and found a large crate of empty bottles. He pulled out each bottle and set them on the floor.

The bottom of the box was empty. No note from Cas.

Dean sighed in frustration. It felt like he was tracing the footsteps of a ghost. A very cryptic ghost.

Dean put the bottles back in the box.

“I haven’t seen one of these in years.” Jimmy said from in front of the jukebox.

The jukebox was retro. It was bulky and had a large glass panel, through which a neat stack of CDs could be seen. It had actual buttons that had song names printed next to them. It was not one of those touch screen jukeboxes that Dean saw in bars everywhere ever since smart phones popped up.

“Go ahead, try it,” Dean said, leaning against the bar. “I could use some music.”

Jimmy inserted a coin, and it went down the chute with a dull metallic clunk. Dean waited, before he heard Jimmy mashing whatever buttons he could reach.

“It’s not working,” Jimmy said. He kicked the machine, and the sudden loud noise nearly made Dean jump out of his skin.

“Hey! Keep it down. Everything in a five mile radius will hear you.”

“I got this,” Jimmy said. The jukebox sputtered, and a CD behind the glass panel started to spin.

The jukebox started cranking out a song that Dean recognized: All Out Of Love by Air Supply. The sounds were warped and distorted as they came through mixed with buzzes of static. For some reason, the song started from the chorus:

_… all out of love… lost without you  
I know… right… for so long_

“Seriously, dude?” Dean said.

“I didn’t choose it,” Jimmy said. “The juke box is broken.”

“I’m more surprised it’s still working after that beating you gave it,” Dean said.

Jimmy pressed a few more buttons.

The jukebox gargled, and then it started again:

_… all out of love… lost without you…_

It halted, before it started again:

_…lost without you…_

It stuttered, and repeated:

_…lost without you…  
…lost without you…  
…lost without you…  
…lost without you…  
…lost without you…  
…lost without you…_

The looping song was the only sound in the bar, hell, in the whole town.

Dean could feel his hair standing on end. “Turn it off, Jimmy.”

Jimmy mashed the buttons. “I can’t make it stop.”

“Pull the plug. That usually works,” Dean said.

The jukebox moved with a high-pitched screech, like chairs scraping floor tiles, as Jimmy slowly pushed it away from the wall, inch by inch.

“The song is giving me the creeps.”

“You could give me a hand,” Jimmy said, and pulled at the machine, which moved another inch. Then Jimmy sucked in a sharp breath. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Dean said. “Is it stuck?”

“You’ll want to see this,” Jimmy said, looking up at Dean with wide eyes. He looked scared.

Uncertainly, Dean walked over to Jimmy. Jimmy had move the jukebox a foot away from the wall. Dean peered around the back of the jukebox. A huge spider web stuck stubbornly to the back of the jukebox, catching dust bunnies that were floating in the air.

But that wasn’t what Jimmy was talking about.

A power plug was lying on the ground. A cable connected the plug to the jukebox.

The jukebox was not plugged in.

And it was going:

_…lost without you…  
…lost without you…  
…lost without you…_

The distorted music rung hollowly in the empty bar. It was making the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stood.

“I say we get the hell out of here,” Dean said.

Jimmy was moving towards the door. “Good call.”

\- - -

** Wood Side Apartments **

Jimmy watched the streets while Dean was jimmying the lock to the front door of an apartment building.

“There is something wrong with this place,” Jimmy said, staring nervously at the fog-covered streets. “I don’t like the fog.”

“You and me both,” Dean said, working on the lock. “Keep your eyes peeled. I don’t want a monster dog sneaking up on us.”

“Are we really breaking into people’s apartments?” Jimmy said.

“The thing about being in a ghost town is that you can do whatever you want,” Dean said. The lock clicked. Dean pushed open the door. It swung open to reveal a shabby lobby. Dean looked around the room, until he found an emergency evacuation map of the building.

The building didn’t have a lot of apartments. It had three floors and around ten apartments on each floor.

The lock of the door of the first apartment they checked was broken; none of Dean’s lock-picking skills could open it. They had better luck with the second apartment; the door was unlocked. The third apartment was unlocked too.

“Let’s split up. We’ll go through this faster,” Dean said. “Shout when you’ve finished with an apartment. I don’t want to lose you in this building.”

“We can always meet up in Happy Burger again,” Jimmy said. “At least we know that place is safe.”

They didn’t find anything in the apartments on the first floor. They took the stairs and started searching the apartments on the second floor.

Dean was pulling books off a bookshelf and flipping through a arts and craft book, meaning the chances of it mentioning a Seal of Metatron were extremely slim, when he heard something rustling in the hallway. His first thought was that it was another monster dogs. Dean gripped his knife and peeked out of the door.

A flash of tan fabric disappeared around a corner. A door further down the hallway was ajar.

Dean hadn’t heard Jimmy telling him he would move onto the next apartment. “Jimmy?”

“Yeah?” Jimmy said, looking out of the apartment that Dean had put him. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Dean said, staring down the hallway. “Just checking you’re here,”

“I’m here.”

“Have you checked that apartment?” Dean said. “The door is open.”

“No,” Jimmy said. “Go ahead.”

Dean pushed open the door wider, and waited in the hallway for something to jump out from behind the door. Nothing did. He walked carefully into the apartment, holding his knife, in case there was anything waiting for him inside.

He didn’t have to look far. A note was left on a coffee table:

_I saw Balthazar. He wouldn’t forgive me, but I couldn’t kill him again. I refused to kill him again._

Dean held the paper in his hand, and his thoughts spun. If Cas had been seeing dead people, it couldn’t be good. There must be either something powerful enough to raise the dead, or something that could make angels hallucinate and see their dead friends.

Either way, some bad shit had gone down.

“Dean? I’ve finished looking in 202.” Jimmy poked his head into the apartment. Then he sniffed, and wrinkled his nose. “Did you smell that?”

“Smell what?” Dean said.

“It smells like something is burnt,” Jimmy said.

“I don’t smell anything.”

“Trust me, I can smell it,” Jimmy said, frowning.

Dean followed Jimmy as Jimmy tried the doors in the apartment and poked his head into the rooms.

Dean smelled it too. The foul stench was getting stronger.

“It stinks,” Jimmy said from ahead of Dean, and disappeared into the last room in the apartment.

“That’s what you get for following your nose,” Dean said. His heart nearly stopped when he reached the room that Jimmy was standing in.

It was a nursery. It had a crib in it. The crib was mostly empty, save for a few toys and a small blanket.

Jimmy was holding a Polaroid picture.

Dean grabbed the picture from Jimmy.

“I was looking at that,” Jimmy grumbled.

“Where did you find it?” Dean said sharply.

“In the crib. Why?” Jimmy said.

“This is my mother,” Dean said.

The picture was of Mary, labelled ‘2/7’. She looked older than the last time he travelled back in time and saw her with Dad. She looked happy.

“This is weird,” Jimmy said.

“Understatement of the year,” Dean said. “This is fucking creepy.”

Jimmy looked around the room. “I don’t know where the smell is coming from, but it smells like burnt meat.”

“Like burnt human meat,” Dean said, and left the room.

\- - -

** Rosewater Park **

They couldn’t find any book on a Seal of Metatron in the apartments.

Dean walked out of the building with his hands covered in dust. He rubbed his fingertips, and flicked off the dust that he’d squeezed into little balls.

“Where are we going?” Jimmy said.

“What are the options?” Dean said.

Jimmy looked at the map that Dean had handed him. “Well, there is a Lucky Jade Restaurant, a pet center, another apartment building, a bank, a Rosewater Park, and a Jack’s Inn.”

A line of lyrics popped into Dean’s mind. It was from one of those pop songs that Sam listened to on the radio when Dean was too tired to drive and they couldn’t stop for a motel because a monster had racked up a daily body count in a town on the other side of the country. Sometimes Dean caught a few lines before he drifted off, and the lines stuck with him:

_I thought of angels  
Choking on their halos  
Get them drunk on rose water_

The next few lines of lyrics got kind of creepy, when the singer started singing about pulling out angel teeth and clipping angel wings. Dean refused to think of how it cut a little too close to home.

“Rosewater Park,” Dean said. “It’s worth a shot.”

“If you say so,” Jimmy said doubtfully. “You’re the hunter.”

Jimmy led the way, reading the map, while Dean kept an eye out for monsters and notes and photos.

There was a faint echo in the fog. “Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean.”

Dean stopped and glanced behind him. He didn’t see anything other than three feet of empty street and heavy fog.

He had to be imagining things.

Jimmy was farther ahead in the street, far enough that Dean could just make out the outline of his back through the fog. He’d kept walking, not realizing that Dean had stopped.

“You hear that?” Dean said, catching up with Jimmy.

“Hear what?” Jimmy said.

Dean strained his ear. He couldn’t hear anything other than his and Jimmy’s footsteps. “Nothing.”

Jimmy took them to Rosewater Par k easily enough.

The small park was built on the shore of the lake, decorated with a few statues and long benches.

“Do you want to split up and cover more grounds?” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, sure,” Dean said. “That works for us last time. Just don’t wonder off, Jimmy.”

Jimmy laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Dean said.

“I’m a dad, and I don’t think I’ve ever nagged Claire as much as you do me.” Jimmy shook his head, and headed for a large statue on the far right of the park.

“I don’t do you,” Dean muttered, before going on his own search.

On the edge of the park was a wide sidewalk that faced the lake. The sidewalk was lined with railings in case anyone wandered into the waters. A few small telescopes were mounted next to the railings, so that tourists could insert coins and look at the lake for a few minutes. Dean wasn’t sure if anyone ever used those things; the fog was thicker here than other parts of the town.

An empty hot dog stand stood forlornly on the sidewalk.

Dean found a note left on the hot dog stand:

_The Seal is a red herring. I’ll go to the Heaven’s Night. Perhaps I’ll find it there instead._

“Find what?” Dean said. This wasn’t the first note where Cas had mentioned a mysterious ‘it’. What had Cas been looking for?

A terrified yelp disrupted Dean’s thoughts.

Jimmy was in trouble.

Dean ran to where he heard Jimmy screamed. He nearly tripped over a couple of shallow steps. He spotted Jimmy’s trench coat not far away from the entrance of the park. “Jimmy?”

Jimmy was staring at a bloody message scrawled on a wall:

_He killed them with their love  
– S. King_

Under the message were two bodies of what looked like little girls. Their shirts and jeans were covered in blood. Their blonde hair was matted with it.

Dean’s stomach roiled.

Dean backed away from the smell coming from the bodies. The smell had attracted dozens of flies.

Dean picked up the photos next to the bodies. He knew what were they going to be before he looked at the pictures. They were two Polaroid pictures, one of Ellen behind a bar, and one of Jo holding a shotgun, numbered ‘3/7’, ‘4/7’.

These photos followed after the ‘1/7’ picture of Sam, and the ‘2/7’ picture of Mary.

“Who is doing this? How the hell did they know I would find them in this order?” Dean said. “Are they stalking us?”

But Jimmy wasn’t listening. He looked green in the face.

“Jimmy, you okay?” Dean said.

Jimmy bolted.

“Dammit, Jimmy! Wait!”

In the fog, Dean missed some steps. He tripped and landed on his knees and hands, drawing blood.

Jimmy had disappeared into the fog.

“Shit.”

\- - -

Dean found him sitting against a dumpster outside a motel. Jimmy hadn’t run far. “Jimmy?”

“Yeah.”

“The hell, man?” Dean said. “You can’t run off like that!”

Jimmy didn’t look up. “Can you give me some space for a while?”

Dean grabbed Jimmy by the arm. “What the hell was that?”

Jimmy glared at him. “Leave me the hell alone. This is me asking nicely.”

“I told you not to run off. I told you it is dangerous. Do we have a problem, Jimmy?”

“You and your brother made me leave my family last time we met, Dean, and it turned out my wife was possessed by a demon, and it nearly got my family killed,” Jimmy said. “To be frank, I’m not very happy to see you again.”

“I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

“Does it really matter, Dean?”  
“Okay, I get it,” Dean said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll wait for you around the corner.”

Dean waited for a long time. He kicked at pebbles on the street, and watched them disappeared into the fog. He checked his phone: No signal. It’d only been a few hours since he arrived here. It was strange how time passed so slowly when he was wandering around lost in this town.

Jimmy appeared out of the fog from around the corner. “Hey, Dean.”

“Hey, do you want to talk about it?” Dean said.

“What? Dead little girls not enough reason for me to freak out?” Jimmy said wearily.

“You kind of blew up at me about your family back there,” Dean said.

“The bodies reminded me of Claire,” Jimmy said. “I can never see her again, can I?”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said.

“Me too. I wish I didn’t leave without saying goodbye,” Jimmy said. “I wish I can tell Amelia and Claire I love them. I wish a lot of things.”

“Me too,” Dean said.

They walked in silence to the Heaven’s Night that Cas had mentioned in his note.

\- - -

** Heaven’s Night **

Heaven’s Night was spelt out in pink neon lights on the wall next to the entrance. The pictures of a few half-naked women were pasted on the wall.

“This is a strip club,” Jimmy said blankly.

Dean laughed. He didn’t think Cas would be all that willing to come here if he’d known this was a strip club with a blasphemous name. “Come on, let’s check it out.”

A stage with a pole was set in the center of the club. Chairs and small round tables were placed around the stage.

“You found anything from Cas?” Dean said.

“Nothing here. You?”

“No,” Dean said disgruntledly. Cas had left a paper trail behind him, literally, everywhere he’d gone. Dean didn’t see why Cas would have decided to break the pattern here. “Keep looking. Cas must’ve left something here.”

Jimmy grumbled unhappily. Honestly, Dean was just glad that the guy hadn’t fled town, with how unhappy he seemed to be about staying put.

A door creaked.

Then Dean heard them: The sounds of claws clicking on wooden floorboard.

Dean turned around, and saw a large canine head poking through a door in the back of the club.

It wasn’t a monster dog; it was three of them.

“Jimmy,” Dean said.

Jimmy looked like he was frozen to the spot.

“Run!” Dean shouted.

His yell seemed to shake Jimmy out of his terrified trance. They both ran for the front door.

Dean pulled the door wide open, and stretched a hand out for Jimmy. Jimmy was mere seconds away from him.

A giant monster dog bit down on Jimmy’s shoulder.

Jimmy screamed.

Blood was seeping out of his trench coat.

Dean stretched a hand out to grab Jimmy’s hand. He got it. Jimmy’s hand was clammy with sweat from fear and probably pain. But Dean got a firm grip on him. “I got you.”

Then the monster dog yanked, and Jimmy’s hand slipped out of Dean’s.

It felt like déjà vu.

Before he could react, the door slammed itself in Dean’s face.

Dean tugged at the door handle. He shoved at the door with his shoulder, trying to get it open. “Jimmy!”

The door was stuck.

Jimmy screamed. His voice was muffled through the door. “Dean! God, help me!”

Dean heard something tear, and Jimmy screamed in agony. Dean hoped to whoever was listening up there that it wasn’t a limb being torn off.

“Dean!”

“Jimmy!” Dean yelled. He kicked at the door. It wouldn’t budge. It was sturdier than any of the doors that he’d kicked down on his hunts.

It wouldn’t move.

He kicked at the door a few more times, and only succeeded in leaving impression of the soles of his shoes on the door.

Then he heard something wet and heavy hit the floor inside the strip club.

“Jimmy, answer me, dammit!”

As the ruckus in the club died down, Dean eventually had to stop hammering on the door. The skin of his palms and knuckles was rubbed raw.


	4. Alone Again (Naturally)

** Brookhaven Hospital **

Dean didn’t know why he went to the hospital next to Heaven’s Night.

As a general rule, Dean hated hospitals. Being in a hospital meant someone he loved was gonna die on a starched bed while he watched helplessly.

Jimmy was probably already dead.

It was dark inside the hospital.

Dean punched the button for the elevator, and surprisingly, the doors opened.

Dean didn’t use the elevator though. He didn’t want to get trapped in metal box in a ghost town.

The reception was empty. So were the waiting room and the washrooms.

Dean heard something scratching behind some of the doors, and he didn’t open them. Dean walked up the stairs to get to the waiting rooms. He roamed the hallways. The walls might have been white once, but now they were gray with age and the paint was peeling. The tiles under his feet were dirty and grimy and dirt had collected in the cracks.

He tried some of the doors. Most of them are locked, but sometimes they opened to a ward or a day room or a locker room.

In the wards, the beds were pushed to the very back of the rooms, or cluttered messily. Dean found some gurneys and wheelchairs in the hallways. It looked like something straight out of a zombie apocalypse aftermath.

He didn’t open the doors that he heard claws scratching behind the doors.

Dean opened another room. It was a private room, and, unlike the wards, only had a single bed.

There was something, someone, lying on the bed.

It was the body of an older man with a full head of dark hair and a beard. The body was bloated and gray. Some of the hair and skin was falling away because of decomposition. The mattress was soggy with liquid that was leaking out of the body.

It had been here for a while.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Dean said, and picked up the Polaroid picture from the bedside table, though he knew the answer already. It was a picture of John while he was rummaging through the trunk of the Impala. It was labeled, ‘5/7’.

Dean sat in the chair next to the bed, and buried his face in his hands.

\- - -

** Heaven’s Night, Again **

When he was done, after who knew how long, Dean walked back out into the foggy streets again.

The mist was so dense that Dean thought he might actually taste the lake in the air. If he was not careful, he might even hear the calls of “Dean. Dean. Dean” echoing inside the fog.

Dean past by Heaven’s Night, and he couldn’t help looking at its door and the tacky pick neon light next to the doorway again. He walked up to the door, as if hoping a miracle might have happened and someone might have gotten Jimmy out while he’d been gone.

He tried the doorknob.

The door was still jammed.

Dean looked up, and froze.

A new message was painted in red above the door. It hadn’t been there when Dean and Jimmy had gone in and Jimmy had died.

_Hell  
Is the absence of God._

Dean tried the door again. This time, he nearly slid on a piece of paper left under the door.

The lined paper looked like the ones that Cas had been writing on.

Heart thumping, Dean slid out the paper from under the door.

_I can’t get into Heaven’s Night. The door is jammed._

Another line was written messily on the back; the blocky letters looked wobbly:

_They’re conspiring to stop me. I only want to get back what is mine._

“What is this?” Dean said.

He didn’t dare to hope.

If Dean and Jimmy could get into Heaven’s Night but Cas couldn’t, then that had to mean Cas had come after the doors locked Jimmy in with the monster dogs. Maybe Cas had come back while Dean was gone. Maybe Cas had come back for Jimmy.

And Jimmy had said to meet up at Happy Burger if they ever got separated.

Dean was pretty sure angels could read the memories of their vessels.

Maybe Cas was at Happy Burger.

\- - -

** Happy Burger, Again **

The lights at Happy Burger were still on.

A trench-coated figure was sitting by a table by the windows, staring out into the fog outside on the streets.

“Cas?’ Dean said tentatively. “Are you back, buddy?”

“That joke is getting old, Dean,” the man said. “You’ve gotta stop mixing us up. I’m Jimmy.”

Jimmy turned to smile crookedly at Dean. His trench coat was as good as new. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on him. Instinctively, Dean took a step back away from Jimmy. Something wasn’t right. “Did Cas come back?”

“No,” Jimmy said, giving him an odd look. “You think I’d be in control and talking to you if he were back?”

“You can’t be here,” Dean said.

“Why are you so surprised, Dean?” Jimmy said. “I told you to meet up here ife we got separated. We got separated. I’m here. Who else were you expecting?”

“But you died,” Dean said.

“You know, for someone who ‘didn’t mean’ to screw me and my family over, you don’t look very happy to see me again,” Jimmy said.

Dean had seen many things wearing that face (Cas, junkie Cas, actor guy, God Cas, Leviathan), and none of them scared him more than this thing sitting in an abandoned burger joint.

It had actually made him believe it was a nice Christian family man.

“What are you?”

“I’m Jimmy.”

“You’re not him. What are you?”

“Jimmy,” Jimmy repeated. “My name is Jimmy Novak. I'm from Pontiac, Illinois. I have a family.”

It was what Jimmy had said the first time Dean had met the real Jimmy Novak.

It was impossible.

“Dean, if you want to find Cas, you’ll have to listen to me. You owe me that much.”

“I don’t owe you shit. You’re not Jimmy,” Dean said, and left the burger joint.

Jimmy didn’t follow him.

\- - -

** Streets, Again **

After running into a few monster dogs and stabbing with too much vigor, Dean had figured it out.

Jimmy wasn’t real; he couldn’t have gotten past the monster dogs without a scratch on his body. He was fake, like the bodies and photos that had been popping up everywhere for Dean to find.

Cas didn’t reach Heaven’s Night until Jimmy had gotten mauled by the monster dogs. The note he left at the strip club was new. It was left there not long before Dean found it. It had to mean Cas was still alive, wearing his Jimmy suit, and walking these streets right now.

Dean had to find Cas.

Dean walked down a street that he vaguely recognized, because of the childish crayon drawings on a low wall. But something was different about the street. A body was left sitting up against the wall, right next to several filled garbage bags.

It was like driving by the scene of a car accident. Dean didn’t want to look, but he was already kneeling next to the body before he knew it.

A Polaroid picture and one of Cas’s notes were lying on the ground next to the body. It was strange. Cas never left his notes next to the bodies meant for Dean.

Dean didn’t like it when patterns were broken.

This note read:

_Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me._

The words got smaller and smaller until the line ended with a messy scrawl.

“Right. Cas is going nuts again,” Dean said. He took a closer look at the body.

The corpse was dressed in a button-down and a pair of jeans. It was propped against the wall, held up by a gun stuck under its jaw. The top of its head was blown clean off, and most of its face was gone. Bits of bone fragments, hair, and teeth were stuck wetly on the wall behind it.

Reluctantly, Dean picked up the Polaroid picture, because that was what he was expected to do. The picture showed Bobby wearing a baseball cap and frowning at a book in his old kitchen at the salvage yard. It was numbered, ‘6/7’.

The gun stuck under the corpse’s jaw was a Winchester Model 1901 shotgun.

The corpse’s hands could barely reach the trigger. It couldn’t have blown its own head off.

“I get it, okay?”

\- - -

** Happy Burger, Again **

“Are you ready to listen?” Jimmy said. He hadn’t moved from his seat by the window. He didn’t turn his gaze from the fog outside the diner.

“Fuck you.”

“Just yell if you want to talk to me,” Jimmy said. “I’ll hear you.”

Dean walked out of Happy Burger.

\- - -

** Wood Side Apartments, Again **

Dean looked at the Polaroid pictures and Cas’s notes he’d collected. He wanted to tear them up.

But these were the only signs that Cas was here and that Dean wasn’t going out of his damn mind. Dean couldn’t find any more new writings from Cas. He’d searched every place. Hell, he broke into the apartments buildings and searched every room.

Now and then, Dean heard the calls of “Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean” in the fog. Sometimes they came from the other side of the wide gaps in the streets. Sometimes they came from no more than a block away from Dean.

He made sure the hell away from them.

Dean retraced his footsteps. He walked past the park, apartment building, and the church, and found himself back in front of the clinic.

A tall wall blocked the street that he’d used to get into town.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean said tiredly.

He hadn’t expected to be able to get out that easy. He had to find Cas before he left. But it would’ve been nice to be given the option to leave.

As night fell, Dean found a room with a decent bed in the apartment building. It was far away from the apartment where he found Mary’s photo. Dean lay on the bed fully dressed; he didn’t take off his boots. He wasn’t gonna let some kind of monsters came after him with his pants down.

He didn’t feel like he had to piss or eat or sleep, but he’d rather not spend his time in the fog at night. He didn’t want one of those monster dogs getting the jump on him.

“Dean.” The calls from the fog came again. “Dean. Dean!”

“Shut the hell up,” Dean muttered. He covered his ears with his hands and tried to sleep.

The calls eventually faded.

\- - -

** Streets, Again **

A light was shining through the fog.

The light moved from side to the side of the street, sometimes lingering on the walls and the doorways. It wasn’t the headlight of a bike.

It was someone with a flashlight.

It might be foggy, but the sun was out. Why the hell would anyone be using a flashlight out in the streets? For Dean to be able to see the light from so far away, it had to be a pretty heavy-duty flashlight too, like the kind of stuff Dean used for hunting and was carried in Baby’s trunk.

“Jimmy? Is that you? Are you fucking with my head again?” Dean said.

That someone was coming down the street towards him in the fog. Dean wasn’t so sure it was Jimmy now. It was too tall to be a monster dog, but anything could be living in this fog.

Dean started backtracking up the street, instead whoever it was decided to rush him. “Who is that?”

The person stopped. As he turned around, he shone the bright light in Dean’s eyes, making it impossible for Dean to see. “Dean?”

Dean raised a hand to block the light. “You know it’s me, Jimmy.”

“I’m not Jimmy.” The voice was gravely and much deeper than Jimmy’s.

“Cas?” Dean said, squinting into the light. He swallowed drily. “You’re back?”

“Are you real?” Cas said. “I don’t think you’re real.”

“‘Course I am. You told me to come, Cas,” Dean said.

“I didn’t tell you to come,” Cas said. He looked into some indeterminable distance behind him. He was unnaturally still, like he was listening for something.

“What is it?” Dean said. “Cas?”

Then Dean heard it too. Or rather, he felt it.

The pavement shook with each step it took. It felt like lumps of heavy flesh were hitting the ground, but Dean couldn’t hear any footsteps coming towards them. The only sound in the fog was some rustling, like old newspapers fluttering in the wind.

“It’s coming. It’s coming for me,” Cas said. “You don’t have to try and kill me anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean said.

Cas ran.

Dean chased after him, but he had to stop when he rounded the corner of the street. The mist swirled thickly. There was no sign of Cas anywhere.

Then something dark and silent and huge lumbered past Dean in the fog. One of its sprawling limbs caught Dean in the stomach, knocking Dean off his feet and into a lamppost.

Dean stayed lying on the ground for a full minute before he could get his breath back.

It was like being hit by a truck.

Dean plucked a large feather off his shirt. It left dark red slime on his fingers.

It felt real.

\- - -

** Rosewater Park, Again **

Dean followed the sidewalk of the park that ran alongside the lake. Through the dense fog rolling over the lake, Dean thought he spotted something large and dark floating in the water.

Warily, Dean stopped.

It looked like a human body.

Dean climbed over the railings, and waded into the lake. The body was close to the shore; the water merely came up to Dean’s knees when he reached the body.

He lifted up the body and flipped it on its back, and recoiled.

His heart thudded loudly. He should be expecting this.

The body looked like Jimmy. Or Cas. Dean wasn’t sure who it was supposed to be.

Jimmy-Cas lifted its bloated eyelids and said, “Dean”.

“Fuck.” Dean dropped it like a pile of bricks back into the water. The body sank, instead of floating like how it’d been when Dean found it. Dean retreated to the shore and sat down on dry ground.

Jimmy-Cas didn’t come out of the water again.

The only thing left of the body was a Polaroid photo numbered, ‘7/7’, floating on the lake. Dean fished it out of the water.

Cas’s face stared up at him solemnly.

Dean tried hard not to break down.

No one ever mentioned how creepy Polaroid pictures were. The colors were always faded or yellowy or gray; they didn’t look real. They looked like something dug out from someone’s dungeon.

“I’ve collected the full set,” Dean said aloud. “Do I get a prize, Jimmy?”

It was silent.

The body in the lake didn’t answer him.

A hand gripped Dean’s shoulder lightly.

“Are you ready to listen?”

\- - -

Dean spun around. Jimmy was standing behind him, leaning against the railings, like he had been there the whole time. Dean stumbled and nearly fell on his ass. “Son of a bitch.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

Dean threw the Polaroid photos at Jimmy. “For a start, you can take these back, asshole.”

Jimmy let the photos fell to the ground. He pushed away from the railing and stood up straight. “I’ll go. I’ll talk to you when you feel better.”

“Wait,” Dean said. “I want to say I’m sorry. That’s what you want to hear, right?”

Jimmy frowned. “What?”

“I’m sorry I let all these people die: Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, Mom, Dad, and Cas. I fail you. I shouldn’t be alive here. I don’t deserve to live; they should be alive instead of me. Like I didn’t know that already.”

Jimmy was quiet.

“I got it right, didn’t I?” Dean said. “That’s what you need to hear to let me go.”

“Dean, this isn’t a test,” Jimmy said.

“Sure it is,” Dean said. “You make me find the pictures and the notes. You’re telling me something. You want something from me.”

“You’re not completely wrong,” Jimmy said. “This town? It feeds on people’s guilt. But you’ve been to Hell and back, Dean. There is nothing more painful it can inflict on you that you haven’t suffered. There is no crime that you haven’t already paid for.”

“So what is this? You just want to have a heart-to-heart with me, is that it?” Dean said.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“You know what you’re afraid of, Dean? More than anything else?” Jimmy said.

Dean refused to play his game. “How about you tell me?”

“You’re afraid of death,” Jimmy said.

“No, I’m not,” Dean scoffed. “I met the guy, and trust me, he’s an asshole, but he’s not that scary.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t let Sam die? Why you let that angel got inside him? Why you wouldn’t let Cas die? Why you let that angel resurrected him?”

“How do you know that?” Dean said, feeling his heartbeat quickened.

“I know a lot of things,” Jimmy said simply. “You can save them now, but you can’t save them forever, Dean, and you know it. Sam was ready to die. Cas has died over and over again for you. And one day you’ll die too.”

“What are you suggesting, doc?” Dean said. “A newt’s eye? A baby’s blood? A nice trip to the beach?”

“You can’t stop death,” Jimmy said. “It’s the one thing that has no cure.”

“Is that it?” Dean said, letting out a long breath. For a moment there, he thought Jimmy was gonna offer him eternal life or the fountain of youth or something. “Tell me something that I don’t know.”

Jimmy smiled wistfully. “We can all use a little reminding, Dean, that we don’t always come back from the dead.”

“What do you know about death anyway? You aren’t real,” Dean said.

“Castiel may be wandering in my skin, but I am here. I’m Jimmy,” Jimmy said simply. “I meant what I said about my family, Dean. I wish I can see my wife and my little girl again. Claire must be old enough to be in college now.”

Dean took a long minute to process what Jimmy had said. “Doesn’t mean you’re real. If anything, you’re just a manifestation of this town.”

“I can think, I can feel. I’m more real than I’ve ever been since I was possessed by Castiel. I’m real enough,” Jimmy said. He nodded at the Polaroid pictures scattered at his feet. “Have you ever told them you love them?”

“They knew,” Dean said,

“Did they? You never told them.”

Dean opened his mouth. He wanted to say they did, of course they did. Sam knew how much he loved him. Dean would give up everything for Sam, he had given up everything for Sam. Cas and Bobby and Ellen and Jo and John and Mary knew he loved them, no matter the shit that they’d gone through together.

They knew, didn’t they?

“Think about it, Dean. Mull it over.” Jimmy pulled out a small square of paper from his pocket. “In the meantime, I want you to have this.”

Dean unfolded the paper. With a lurch of his stomach, Dean realized it was a note written in Cas’s handwriting. This message was more lucid than the last note that Dean had gotten from Cas:

_I know where it is now. I must head to the Historical Society. I will find it there._

“You should hurry,” Jimmy said

“Why should I trust you?” Dean said, holding onto the paper tightly.

“That’s up to you, Dean,” Jimmy said with a close-lipped smile, “but I told you, this place feeds on people’s guilt.”

Realization dawned on Dean. “And Cas carries a shit ton of guilt.”

“You should hurry.”

Without another word, Dean ran out of the park.


	5. Cas

** Silent Hill Historical Society **

The Silent Hill Historical Society was a two-story house standing right next to the lake. It was dark and quiet, like the rest of the buildings in Silent Hill.

A single line of words was painted above the door:

_Hell is You._

“What have they been telling you, Cas?” Dean said.

The door was unlocked.

A reception desk stood next to the door. A bulky cash register occupied most of the surface of the desk.

Dean looked around the place. The Historical Society was actually a small museum that had paintings of the history of the town. Though not much light came through the cracked windows, it was bright enough for Dean to view the paintings that were hung on the walls. The paintings depicted local buildings and sceneries. Dean even spotted a painting of the hospital he’d gone to earlier.

The walls were dull and the paintings were covered in dust.

“Cas?” Dean called. “ Cas?”

He didn’t think Jimmy was lying to him. But this was a small place, and Cas wasn’t here.

Dean reached the very end of the exhibition room.

It was a dead end, except for a large hole in the wall.

Dean peered into the hole. It looked like some sort of tunnel. If Cas had been here, this was the only way he could have gone.

“Here goes nothing.” Dean took his knife in hand, and, with one hand on the wall of the tunnel of the rocky walls, Dean walked into the tunnel.

The tunnel was sloping downwards, and Dean walked carefully, in case he tripped over a piece of rock in the dark. He had to be somewhere underground by now. He might even be under the lake, considering how long he’d been walking and how deep the tunnel seemed to be going.

After what felt like hours, Dean reached the end of the tunnel.

The rocky ground of the tunnel smoothed out to a tiled floor.

Dean couldn’t see a thing. This place was darker than the historical society he’d left behind. There were no windows for light to come in.

Dean pulled out his cell phone, and switched it on. The light from the screen was weak, but it was enough for him to see some of his surroundings.

He was standing in a small room. The tiles on the floor were stained with dirt and black goo. Large moldy spots covered the walls. It looked older and more abandoned than the other places Dean had seen on the upside of this town.

A wooden desk and chair sat silently in the center of the room.

Dean shone his light on the desk. A few pages of official-looking documents were left on the desk.

“‘Prisoner cell number’,” Dean read. “What is this place?”

Apparently, there were prison cells hidden here at the end of a tunnel, which was hidden behind a wall of the historical society. Dean didn’t like this at all.

He found the only door that led out of the room, and pushed it open.

A narrow corridor behind the door was split into a T-shaped hallway, which was lined with cell doors. But a barred gate blocked Dean from getting to the cells. Before he could go any farther, a bright light shone in his face.

“Who are you?” Cas said.

It was good to know Cas still had his ridiculously bright heavy-duty flashlight. Dean had to hold up a hand to shield his eyes again. “It’s me, Cas.”

“Dean?”

“Yeah. Put that thing down. You’re blinding me.”

Cas lowered his flashlight. He was standing on the other side of the gate, but Dean could see his face much better now. Cas was staring at him with suspicion in his eyes. “Are you real, Dean? Have you come to kill me too?”

“What? No, I’m not gonna get you,” Dean said. “We gotta get out of here. I’m here to save you.”

Cas looked unconvinced. “You’re trying to stop me. You’re not really here.”

Dean tried not to think how ironic it was, that he’d had said the exact thing about Jimmy. “Look, I’m real, Cas. Would I be appearing on this side of the gate if I were out to get you?”

“You may be real,” Cas said slowly, “but I can’t leave. I’m looking for it.”

“What are you looking for?” Dean asked helplessly. “Please, Cas, just come with me.”

Something was moving towards them from another room. It sounded like something heavy being dragged along the floor.

“Open the gate, Cas. We have to get out of here,” Dean said.

“I can’t open it,” Cas said. “It’s too late now.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean said.

“It’s for your good. It’s coming,” Cas said.

He’d barely finished the sentence before his flashlight was slapped out of his hand.

The heavy-duty flashlight thudded to the ground. It was a surprise it didn’t crack anything in the fall.

Cas was bending down to pick it up when he was sent crashing into the gate and slid down to the floor. Dean desperately stretched out a hand through the bars to grasp Cas’s shoulder. Cas was breathing and moving. He wasn’t out cold.

“Cas, you okay?” Dean said.

“I can’t see it,” Cas said. “I can’t attack it in this darkness.”

“Just run, Cas! You can’t kill it.”

“I can kill it. I have my angel blade. It can hurt it,” Cas said. He was standing up again.

He picked up the flashlight on the floor, and an angel sword glinted in the dark.

The thing, the monster, whatever it was, let out a screech so high-pitched that Dean winced and covered his ears.

Cas ran towards the monster, holding the flashlight in one hand and attacking the monster with the blade in his other hand. Dean saw glimpses of feathers on the monster every time the flashlight caught it in its light. Dean couldn’t see much of anything since the light was moving too hectically, but the monster tagged Cas more times than Dean liked hearing. The flashlight was heavy, weighing Cas down. Cas wasn’t moving as quickly as he could.

Cas groaned painfully as he was slapped into a wall, and the flashlight landed next to his feet.

“Dammit, Cas. Why won’t you let me help you?” Dean said.

“This is my fight,” Cas said.

“Yeah, this is not working, Cas. You’re gonna die before you can kill it.” Dean said, gripping the bars so tightly that his knuckled whitened.

The monster moved around again in the small hallway, screeching, and something clattered.

“No,” Cas said in distress.

The flashlight rolled to the gate where Dean was, and Cas landed somewhere outside of Dean’s view.

“Stay out of the fight, Dean. This doesn’t involve you,” Cas said, somewhere in the dark, outside the range of the flashlight. “Just give me the flashlight.”

“You stubborn son of a bitch,” Dean said, and he grabbed the flashlight through the bars, grunting at the weight in his hand. The flashlight was heavy. “Would you listen to me? This is a two-man job.”

Dean shone the light at where Cas’s voice was coming from.

Somewhere in the struggle, Cas had gotten a long nasty cut on his forehead that ran parallel to his hairline, like someone had tried to scalp him. His lower lip was busted, and it was dripping blood onto his chin. He was lying against a cell door, glaring at Dean like he wanted to murder him. He had a death grip on his blade. “Give me the flashlight, Dean. Now.”

“No, I’m not gonna do that. I’m helping you fight this thing,” Dean said, and shone the light on the monster.

The monster looked like it was made up of angel wings. To be more precise, it looked like the result of an experiment gone wrong, after a bunch of angels were stuffed and packed into a trash compactor until nothing but twisted broken wings were left. The wings hung limply from its body and were dragged along the floor, leaving a trail of ash.

Its head poked out from under the mass of wings and feathers, and it looked… human.

At this rate, he’d been expecting animal heads or wheels of eyes. He hadn’t expected a human face on that thing. The head was bald, and the face was too long and too thin; it looked like an alien’s impression of a human. But with its green eyes, strong nose and curved mouth, Dean had to admit it also kind of looked like him.

It was straight up uncanny.

And it was turning its head towards Dean.

“Give me the flashlight,” Cas said from behind the monster. His voice didn’t tremble, but he sounded afraid. “It is attracted to light. The gate won’t hold it for long. You don’t have an angel blade.”

The monster turned its body fully towards Dean. Its feathers were ruffled.

“You better start stabbing, Cas,” Dean said, backing away from the gate.

The monster charged at Dean. It let out a loud screech that felt like it could pierce Dean’s eardrums, and threw itself at the gate.

The gate creaked.

The monster blocked Dean’s view of Cas, but Dean heard running footsteps and the wet slick sounds of something stabbing into flesh repeatedly.

The monster screeched in pain, and flared outs its many wing.

Cas landed on the floor with a pained grunt. “It won’t die.”

“Stab it in the head or something!”

After one final push, the gate crashed down under the weight of the monster.

Dean scrambled back so the gate didn’t hit him. The monster advanced on him, its eyes glinting in the light of the flashlight 

The flashlight caught the moment that Cas leapt onto the monster’s back and slid the angel blade through its throat.

The monster gurgled and staggered on the spot. Cas pulled out the blade. The monster dropped like a sack of dead wings onto the floor.

Dean’s breathing eased. He unfolded himself from the wall that he’d flattened himself against. “Great timing, Cas.”

Cas looked tired and pale in the light, his blood contrasted sharply against his skin. “You can give me the flashlight now.”

“Yeah, sure. You can have it.”

Cas took the flashlight from Dean, and crouched down next to the body of the monster. He widened the cut in its neck with the angel blade, and reached into the neck with his bare hand.

“That’s gross,” Dean said.

“It’s necessary,” Cas said, easing his entire arm down the monster’s throat. “It has what’s mine.”

“What’s yours?”

“My grace,” Cas said. He pulled out his arm, covered in monster blood, and held out a small glass vial. His expression was stony. “I don’t understand.”

Cas knelt and picked up the vial. At the bottom of it lay s a dead withered thing. The thing filled up nearly half the vial, and moved sluggardly like mud. It looked like sludge found at the bottom of a sewer.

“What is it?’ Dean said uneasily. “It looks kind of dull. Isn’t it supposed to be shinier?”

“It is what I’ve been looking for,” Cas said quietly.

“It’s not real.” Dean swallowed the part about Jimmy and the bodies and the photos and how it all felt so real. “It’s not your grace. You have to trust me on this.”

Cas’s eyes shuttered. “I thought I could find it.”

“I know what you’re looking for, Cas, and it isn’t only the grace,” Dean said. “I don’t know if your winged douche brothers forgive you.”

Cas flinched.

“But I forgive you, Cas. I’ve always forgiven you,” Dean said. “All the crap you put us through, I forgive you. You don’t need to look anywhere else for forgiveness.”

Cas was breathing shallowly. He didn’t cry. Dean had never seen Cas cry, not even when he was falling or walking into certain death, but it seemed Cas was getting pretty close to tears now. “Thank you, Dean. I think I’m ready to leave now.”

“Then let’s get out of here,” Dean said.


	6. Departure

Cas insisted on taking his flashlight with him, though Dean told him it was broad daylight outside.

“The sun is never out, Dean,” Cas said. “This town is always dark for me.”

“Really?” Dean said. “What else did you see out here, Cas?”

“What I needed to see,” Cas said with a pinched mouth. He wasn’t as emotionless as he probably wanted to be, but then again, he’d stopped being much of an enigma to Dean a few years ago. 

They both had issues, and Dean knew when to back off.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Okay.”

Cas held onto Dean’s shoulder on the way out of the building, like he might lose him if he let go. And in this fog, Dean wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t lose Cas either, so he kept an arm wrapped around Cas’s back.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean spotted a neat message written on the side of a building.

_You can’t stop death forever,  
Dean._

Dean wondered if Cas saw the message too, but Cas swept his flashlight over and past the words without so much as a pause.

Cas didn’t see it. Or maybe he couldn’t see it.

Dean clutched Cas tighter. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

“Love you, Cas.”

Cas blinked. “I…wasn’t expecting that.”

“Don’t leave me hanging, dude.”

“I love you too.”

By the time they walked past Happy Burger, the lights in the diner had long gone out.


End file.
